Hang With Friends

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Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

A comment is a shout-out, which will get lost in a few days, because the comment wall is just a random stack.

Please start a discussion to share stories, photos, and videos. Replies will pop up in your "latest activity" and a conversation can develop from the feelings and thoughts you contributed. Groups are built on discussions.

Discussion Forum

TheraminTrees doesn't release videos very often these days, but when he does, they are positive GEMS. Most recent of his works is the following, wherein he dismantles some of the common rebuttals atheist get from believers when we assert our…Continue

My take on the recent melt down at Hang With Friends, of which I missed part, is that some of us were tripped up by a habit of thought. It's something we learn growing up, and use without realizing how much pain it can generate - failing to…Continue

It seems as though some numb-nuts New York pastor by the name of Stephen Kim has written two marriage advice pieces for christian men and women. Not surprisingly, his suggestions come straight out of his never-fail magic book. Seth Andrews of The…Continue

For the last few podcasts, Seth Andrews has been alluding to a new literary effort he's been working on. Well, the cat is out of the bag ... or perhaps I should say, the cow is out of the barn! Seth's new opus is entitled: Sacred Cows: a…Continue

I am weary of those who declare they understand all the answers to the creation of the universe and Earth. They claim they know the answers to the questions of life, meaning, death, and the afterlife. Those with all the answer speak with confidence,…Continue

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It has to be more than 65 years ago I sat in a theater and saw films of out expected future, with cars flying between sky scrapers, and huge highways carrying vast numbers of people to and from their activities, robots doing the work that humans were doing, and all kinds of gadgets would be made available to make life easier for everyone. WW II had just ended, we still were on sugar and fat rations, and we still were trying to repair our home that burned during the war. Our bathroom and kitchen fixtures were old beat up pieces of pot-metal plumbing but that was all we could get at that time. It took a couple more years before we could replace the electrical and plumbing with fixtures with new modern ones. We had a washer with a wringer on it and there was no such thing as a dryer. I remember watching the film thinking that with all those modern conveniences like a washer and dryer and dishwasher and vacuum and new tools shown for carpenters and plumbers and electricians it seemed that everyone could just sit ... we didn't even have TV in those days. The vision was that all the work would be done, toil of trade labor and homemaking left a lot of time for pleasure in the new cars and toys that would be coming onto the market. Ronald Reagan was beginning to plug electric appliances of every kind and we all wanted everything. The movie didn't tell that robots would replace workers on the assembly line, thus reducing the need for human labor. Machines would do the work of keeping inventory and checking out at the grocery story and a lot of them had to be laid off. Cheap clothes started coming into stores and dressmakers were no long needed. Manufacture of shoes went overseas and shops closed their doors. Fast foods came along and many mom and pop restaurants closed down. One by one, the commerce of our nation changed, the main streets changed, beautiful old commercial buildings were torn down and monstrous bank building grew to change our skyline. That was the end of the "ball bearing era" and the beginning of a new technological era.Today, we are at the end of an era and I don't know what to call it, and going into a new age with computers, world-wide trade, opening opportunities for those who are prepared, and closing doors on many of the old ways of making a living. Kind of like the end of the horse and buggy era when we needed black smiths, and an ice man. When my mother was a little girl, my father was her family's ice man in a little farming town. No electricity, outdoor plumbing, no phones, few cars, the "Green Hornet" bus took us from Tekoa to Spokane, or we took the train. Both are gone now. The first airplane came through doing stunts.What is the name of the new era? What will our coming generations do for a living? How will we find work for all the unemployed workers? How will our graduating college kids find work? How will we take care of our children and elderly? With all these questions, that implies opportunities for innovation. Are we prepared for that?

Joseph, it's not the whole world that is sick...it's the USA that needs a high colonic every time the fundies get one of their buybull-based restrictions added to the law books. They THINK that the stiff-necked, bigoted puritans who settled Massachusetts in the 17th century were the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They know NOTHING about what happened on this continent between 1620 and 1776. And anyone who thinks the buybull is a history book will believe anything. No wonder we call a congregation a "flock." They'll let anybody herd them.

sk8eycat, It is a sick world in which we live! One horror story after another and it all centers around basic needs for survival! This is INSANE!! Basic needs for survival, should NEVER have to be thought of as free handouts or for profit, EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joseph, my Social InSecurity Increased by exactly $19 per month, and my MedicareLess Part B premium increased by exactly $5. Last year I only went to my regular doctor 3 times, so I didn't even use up my deductible until the 3rd visit in November.

I am one of Mitt the Twit's useless, lazy 47%. I'd like to see him, and the rest of the Tea Party leadership try to maintain a house, a 68-year-old Aspie sister, 2 elderly kittehs, and be able to sleep at night on my budget. (I know that Ann Romney has...what?...Lou Gherig's Disease, ot something like that, BUT they can afford state of the art treatments and meds AND support a horse [NOT cheap!] and trainer. Plus more than one residence. And a collection of cars. I had to sell my car last summer...couldn't afford gas, smog checks, other maintenance...and the $300 I got from the wrecker helped pay the pool man.)

My sister gets about $600 a month SSI because she's never had a job which paid into Social Security and Medicare, but she blows most of it on mail order crap...scented candles and stuff from Crate & Barrel. There's no use talking to her about helping with the household expenses because her form of autism makes her deaf to anything that contradicts her world-view. She's also a JeeHoover's Witless...has been since she was 20 or so...because they are the only people who will put up with her.

Well, I have to put up with her because Mother's trust left the house to both of us, and she does help with the chores that I'm physically unable to do. I just make sure to thank her (she has never learned to thank anybody for anything...nor has she ever had the impulse to give anybody a gift in her entire life).....and when she starts babbling about trivia, I just nod and say "Uh-huh," once in a while.

She knows better than to try to proselytize around me.

Actually, some of JWs attitudes are close to atheism than fundy ideas. They know that most xian holidays are really pagan celebrations in drag, for one thing. but they are in a close tie with Mormons for ringing doorbells and annoying people.

Oh, dear. I'm bitching again.

Whoever it was who really said, "Old age is not for sissies," was spot on. But I AM a sissy. I just have no place left to run to.